


Family Bonds

by AndeliaMaddock



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Babies, Family, Fluff, Gen, Near Death Experience, baby au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-10
Updated: 2012-03-10
Packaged: 2017-11-01 17:32:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/359458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndeliaMaddock/pseuds/AndeliaMaddock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bro learns that sometimes the best family is the family you create through friendship. Stated in the most ironic of ways because he’s not girly or gay and that’s a pretty flowery description.</p><p>It is an AU with babies and Bro trying to raise a baby he has no idea what to do with.</p><p>A fluff story about Bro, Dave, John, and Dadbert.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Family Bonds

Bro had quick reflexes, sure. But that didn’t stop other drivers from being awful in Houston. Didn’t stop others from slamming into the passenger side when they veered through a red light. His quick reflexes didn’t stop several tons of heavy pickup truck from tearing through metal and ripping into Bro’s own truck.

But he had enough time to get Dave out of the as much danger as humanly possible. Had enough time to rip the belt and pluck his little man from the worn carseat. He clutched his little man to his chest and twisted so his back faced the incoming truck.

The force of the truck ripping into their own vehicle pushed them three lanes over and against a sound barrier, pinning them between truck and cement. They were lucky no other cars got taken with them in the collision, or it could have gone even worse. Bro thanked whatever Gods regularly forsake him for that tiny blessing.

The actual crash itself was over in an instant. Everything moved at such a high speed, it as astonishing he could react in time to do anything at all.

Dave didn’t cry. It was a funny thing, with all of the sirens and all of the noise and people around, Dave just stared back at them through his shades, watching the commotion but not taking part, despite being the center of attention.

The air conditioner broke. It would have been nice to have it not break, but it did break. Not much Bro could do about that. But Dave didn’t cry while the stifling heat bore down on their truck roof and boiled them inside. Dave just curled closer to Bro and watched. Like a very good baby.

He really was a good baby. A very good baby who deserved better than a busy city and sweltering heat and a shitty second hand truck that barely got Bro to daycare and to work and back to their shitty bachelor pad apartment.

The car seat was mangled. There was no way it could ever be used again and as silly as it was to be upset about that, Bro was. There went another thing he’d have to replace. He was lucky Dave was alive. But that was something he couldn’t even focus on because then he wouldn’t be able to concentrate on just making sure Dave stayed alive and stayed safe. There were some things even a Strider couldn’t think about in certain situations and that was one of those things.

The only acceptable thing to think about was how to get Dave and himself safe. How to keep them both calm, cool, and collected. For his part, Dave was being amazing and quiet. But not stupid baby babbling quiet. Pensive quiet. Like he could see more clearly from behind his mini cool shades than most adults could.

Police officers broke out the back window carefully and tried to retrieve Dave out the back. Dave wouldn’t let his tiny fists release Bro’s shirt.

It didn’t matter how many times and how gently Bro coaxed, or how sternly Bro chided him, Dave wouldn’t let go of his shirt. His tiny legs tried to wrap around his waist and he just pressed his face into Bro’s body.

It took two hours before they could extract Bro from the truck. Only then did they get Dave to safety.

But Dave never cried. Never fussed. He just clutched and held on. He was a real trooper and he refused to let Bro go. Refused to leave his brother.

Bro never cried, he was too much of a man for that. But after a long day with Dave in the totaled truck, and hours in the police station he just was too tired to care. He turned off the bedroom light, put Dave down in his crib, and flopped down on his own bed. Strong fingers rubbed his temples, attempting to work away the stress headache that pulsed in his skull. Glasses were off. A crying tool didn’t get to wear cool shades. Even Dave hadn’t cried. What was wrong with him, crying when a baby hadn’t?

He glanced over at his lil’ man, only to find Dave staring at him, shadeless. Those red eyes honed in on him, taking his shuddering form in. He swallowed hard and sniffed, then wiped his eyes dry. He was fine. Striders strode on.

“We’re moving, little man. Can’t stay in a big city like this anymore. Not safe. I don’t want to lose you.”

Maybe it was just him being lonely here, but he always imagined that Dave knew what he was saying. Always imagined that the little guy knew just what was going on, maybe even better than he did. It was in the eyes. They seemed knowing.

So he strode over, plucked Dave up, and held him close, rocking and soothing him even though Dave didn’t seem to need it. Bro needed it. Dave probably needed it, just from the excitement of the day. Probably needed to know it was going to be ok. Bro fucked up so many things, and Dave always took it anyway.

Bro had no business being a brother or a dad or a guardian or anything. He had no business taking care of the little man. For better or worse though, he was the only one that Dave had. Dave was the only one that he had. No one at the club was family. They were all cool acquaintances at best and lately not even that. Having a baby changed everything.

He just held and rocked Dave. No time to think about any of the bad. This was a time to relax and calm down for both of them. Babies knew when you were stressed and it stressed them out. Wasn’t that what he’d read in the Doctor’s office?

He lay back down on the single bed and held Dave on his chest, belly to belly, bleary orange eyes staring into red ones. Calm, cool, collected. No wonder most of the time Dave was all of those things. He had a cool calm guy like Bro to be like. Yeah. They were both fine. They were both the coolest of cool.

Bro couldn’t help but smile when Dave did. So rare to see, but always lifting. Bro grinned, then laughed, a nervous sort that bubbled out and soon grew in strength. He laughed and laughed and just held Dave to his chest, unwilling to let go of his little brother. This was going to be fine. They were fine. Neither was dead. Neither was dead and they were going to leave Houston and head on to… where?

Moving. They would just move somewhere safer. Things would be fine. When one place stopped being good for a Strider, another place opened up. That was how it worked. It just was.

So he took all of his savings from the DJ work from the club, and on the side. He took every single damn penny and invested in a small U-Haul truck to take off for suburbia. Dave picked a spot on the map via scribbling with a crayon and Bro just went with it.

Washington wasn’t too terrible of a place he guessed. He could live in Washington. He’d find a nice little suburban place, or try, and he’d make it work. This would work. Striders made things happen, that was just the law. The code.

The worst thing about the trip was constantly being terrified that something would happen. He checked Dave’s carseat multiple times each time he snapped Dave in. Behind the wheel he looked relaxed, looked impassive and calm as ever, but underneath he was rippling with anxiety. The entire trip (nearly 2500 miles) was one of the most physically exhausting things he had ever done.

But he did it for Dave. Dave deserved to grow up somewhere better. Somewhere that, if Bro had grown up there with an actual family, maybe he would be better at providing things for his little man.

It took about three days. Three days and he found himself in a nice little town that seemed about right. Maple Valley. That was the name of a real good place. A kid would love to grow up in a place like that. Even a coolkid like Dave would grow up real good in a good place like that. Yeah, they would make this work just great.

So he stopped and stayed in a motel. Swift fingers casually flipped through the local paper. There had to be something. Rooms had to be for rent and jobs had to be available in a place like that, right? It was a hot spot for good stable communities and jobs that actually paid bills. Otherwise how would people get into those places?

After he finished with each section of the paper, he passed it along to Dave. Dave, knowing his duty, colored the shit out of those sections of the newspaper. The kid was going to be a really good artist some day. In an ironic way. Like Bro.

Bro smiled, just a bit. No no it was more of a smirk. Yes, cool guys like him smirked if anything. But it was funny, in a surprisingly un-ironic way, how Dave just lay on his belly coloring. His legs were bare and he lifted them up, swinging them about to a rhythm Bro couldn’t quite place. The kid was real cool. He knew what he liked. He’d be his own man some day.

Oh. Room for Rent. Single Father. Minutes from main street. Busing nearby. Shared utilities. And whoa, was that really the price? He could do that. As long as the guy wasn’t a psycho or anything, Bro could handle that. The guy wasn’t even asking for a deposit.

This guy had to be really in need of someone right away, a sucker, a psycho, or just really nice. Bro would kick his ass or just not rent from him if the guy was a psycho, but he would hope for nice. Nice would be a great change of pace after the harsh city life he’d grown accustomed to and been hardened by.

 

The guy was a real upstanding sort. Mr. Jim Egbert. That was a dork’s name if he had ever heard one. Jimmy, Jimbo, Jim Jim Jim. But the guy was cool, in a dorky kind of way. He could see him being a bit weird, but not a psycho. Just going by how attentive he was to the kids while they checked out the place, and going by how Dave seemed to like him and the other brat, the guy was probably real nice. So it was settled. One look about the place, and Bro knew he wanted to stay.

You couldn’t fake nice and get by with a Strider. Bro would know instantly. Even Dave had been known to bite or just grunt and squirm when someone less than good tried to do anything with him. The kid had radar for bad dudes.

This guy was great. This guy would be a good housemate, at least for the time it took for Bro to find a job and get things together. Then maybe he would hit the road Jim, but not before then. Unless the guy did turn into a creeper.

 

Bro reclined back on the couch and clasped his hands behind his neck. Another fruitless job search. Wasn’t this place supposed to have better opportunities? What was wrong with him, why was everything so damn hard? He was a Strider, two weeks was enough time to find a job. He should have been able to turn down jobs, with how many jobs he could have gotten. Instead, he hadn’t even gotten a callback for an interview yet.

Getting actual business jobs with real hours, instead of clubbing jobs with shitty hours, was hard. Sure, he’d rather get a club job in terms of enjoyment for himself, but it didn’t pay nearly enough. He needed something that paid better.

He sighed and kicked back, feet placed on the edge of the coffee table and long legs crossed over each other.

Mr. Egbert walked past, stilled, cleared his throat, and glanced at Bro. “Mister Strider, I will thank you to not place your feet on the furniture. I like to keep this place clean you know.”

Bro smirked, uncrossed his legs slowly, and set them right back down on the floor. His hands unclasped and one snapped up to his cap in a mock salute. “Aye aye Captain Egbert.”

The sigh and shake of the old dude’s head made it a bit more worth it. The guy was cool. He liked him, even if he was an old geezer who was afflicted with the dork disease. “Hey, Jimmy you’ve got a good job, right?” He pushed himself off the plush couch and careened right on towards Mr. Egbert, one hand reaching over and slapping the man on the shoulder. “How’d you get the job?”

That question seemed to shock the dude, or maybe it was the physical contact. Whichever it was, or both, he calmed after a moment and nodded, “Well, I just was very businesslike. I wore a suit, and I presented a good resume and-”

“a resume?”

“Yes, I had a good resume. Wait a moment. Are you saying you don’t know what a resume is?”

“I mean, I guess I know what it is. I just didn’t think it was needed. Never needed one before for all my other jobs.”

This time, it was his shoulder that got slapped. Bro glanced over, eyes slightly wider behind the glasses. “There’s your problem. I wondered why a promising young man such as yourself was having such a hard time getting a job. You have to have a good resume sculpted. Why, I’ll help you with making one and then put in a good word with the boss. He’s been looking for someone good to work in the mail room. You could do that, couldn’t you?”

Bro smiled, just slightly. “I could do a lot more than that, but yeah. You’re really going to help me?” Was it too good to be true? The guy had helped out a lot with other things, but would he really do this?

“Well of course. It doesn’t benefit either of us for you to not have a job. But this isn’t a promise you’ll get to work with me. I really can’t promise anything. But I can certainly try. Come to my office. We’ll work something up real nice.”

 

Funny thing about resumes is you could have a really great one with little actual experience, if you knew how to word things right. Apparently you could have a lot of experience and have a terrible looking resume too. Bro fell into the first category as far as “business” skills, but thanks to Mr. Egbert he was able to have a resume that actually made it look like he might know what he was doing.

Never mind he was more fluent with mix tapes and turn tables than teamwork and business graphs and tables, Jim Egbert was his main man and helped him look like an actual candidate for the job.

Job hunting became easier. He did get called back. He did get a job. It wasn’t the same job Dadbert had said he might get, but it was nearby. They could carpool, which was uncool as Hell, but Bro wasn’t going to complain. He didn’t feel he could complain, as long as he had a real job and could actually come home and take care of Dave.

The job wasn’t even that terrible. Customer service. He was hella good at talking to people and making them feel good about themselves and making them want to buy that product. Some days it sucked like any other job, but most days he actually found himself pretty satisfied with things.

For the first time in months, Bro didn’t have to worry so much. An older neighbor Dadbert trusted watched Dave and John during the day and in the evening they came home and could both watch the two. Some weekeneds Bro could even take off and DJ for parties.

It wasn’t perfect. Nothing was perfect. But it was good. It was nice.

The situation didn’t make it where he was constantly on edge and trying to gain more ground. He could relax and not have the anxiety in his stomach that it was all going to come down on him in a shitstorm of terrible.

Bro felt like he had a family, finally. Even when he had enough money he could have moved out, he didn’t. He liked it there. He liked the old dude who helped him out when he didn’t have to. Bro even liked the dorky little baby that screamed for a week straight, then out popped three white little teeth.

Dave seemed happy too. Not that he showed it a lot, even as a baby. He just would crawl on over to John and pull a blanket over them both. Or he’d share his crayons with John, though John kept trying to eat them. Sometimes he’d laugh, like the two babies had just shared a joke that was too un-ironic for Bro to get and that was the best part.

It was un-ironically hilarious and it got Bro grinning too, just siphoning out a bit of their happiness even if he had no idea what they’d thought so funny.

That was ok with Bro. He didn’t mind just laughing at things for the sake of laughing, just sometimes. Just when no one was paying attention and he could get away with it. Being around Dadbert, it really did relax him. Like the guy was his own absent father or something.

Like they really were a family, however dysfunctional. It was a good thing.

Dave had really made the right choice when he’d scribbled his little picture on the map right over Maple Valley. Dave was a smart little man and he’d grow up real great in a place like this. He’d grow up and have things Bro never had.

That made it all worth it.

“Oh Jesus little guys. This is like, a double stink bomb blowing up in my nose. Come on, did you both have to poop at the same time? No wonder you were laughing.” G-r-o-s-s.

They just laughed. Little shits. He sighed, tore himself from the couch, plucked them up, and plopped them both over his shoulder, and headed on towards the changing area. Their squirming didn’t help them a bit and he changed them quickly. Like a ninja.

He grinned down at them on the changing blanket. Chubby little legs kicked in the air and they seemed pleased with their newly cleaned bottoms.

He grinned right back down, then jerked a bit when he felt a slap on his back. Then back to relaxing and grinning. “Snuck up on me. Must be losing my touch.”

“Oh no, I’m just learning to be more stealthy.”

He tilted his head and arched a brow at the other, “Is that right?”

“Mmhm.” The pipe bobbed lightly in Dadbert’s mouth. “That’s right.”

“Must be learning from the best then.”

“I like to think so. I think we both are.”

Bro glanced back down at them, taking them in through his darkened shades he still wore when not at work. “Yeah. I guess that’s right.”

He was still a cool guy. He couldn’t be too enthusiastic about things. “I changed their crappy little butts this time. Your turn next.” He pulled from the hand, clapped Dadbert on the back, and was gone.

Maybe he wasn’t the best Bro, or the best Dad or guardian or whatever he was. Maybe. But he was learning. It was ok. He could do it. He had help.

Dave would be just fine. They all would be.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for a friend of mine on tumblr. I never wrote fluff or anything that wasn't for mature audiences, as far as Homestuck goes. I hope I did well and you enjoyed! <3 If you have any suggestions on what I could have done, then send me a line.


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